26 Drabbles
by CitiKitti
Summary: 26 alphabetbased drabbles centered around RemusSirius. Some mostly implied slash, though not explicit. Runs Maraudersera through OotP. PG to M, depending on the drabble.


Title: 26 Drabbles

Author: CitiKitti

Summary: 26 alphabet-based drabbles, all Remus/Sirius. Some (mostly implied) slash. Runs from Marauders-era through OotP.

Rating: pg – M, depending.

A/N: Thanks to preraphaelite1 for the beta! smooch And yes, they _are_ all exactly 100 words! Go me!

**26 Drabbles**

**Addiction**

He caresses them as a lover would, one deliberate finger tracing the straight edge of the spines. Lovingly he inhales the faintly acrid spice of aged ink. Century upon century of magic is caught fast between these covers, a trove of arcane knowledge. He could lose himself here so easily, he realizes, immersed in this volume or that.

Back in the dorm, Sirius stares at him in horror and disbelief. "You weren't in the bloody library _again_, were you? That's the third time this week!"

Remus surreptitiously strokes the leather tome hidden under his covers and murmurs, "You wouldn't understand."

**Bibulous**

Remus' hand on the back of his neck is cool, placating – a pocket of icy calm on which Sirius tries to focus while his stomach heaves again, again, and (oh Merlin) again. He doesn't know if it was the firewhisky or the lager or the brandy-filled chocolates that did him in, though he suspects the chocolates. _Shouldn't eat chocolates with th'booze_, he thinks blearily. _Choc'late's not healthy_.

"Y'r t'good t'me," Sirius slurs drunkenly, resting his head against the cold porcelain. Behind them, a mirror clucks its disapproval. "'M not gonna forget it."

"Yes, you will," Remus sighs. "You always do."

**Cell Block**

The textbook has a drawing rather than a photo, as if a three-dimensional record of the prison might be too overwhelming. Even so, Azkaban looms over the black depths of the North Sea, a forbidding fortress of rock bound by magic. Remus tries to imagine what it must be like to be walled up with the damned, sung to sleep by the piteous cries of the eternally maddened.

He reads the assignment once again. _Discuss, in depth, the effects of Dementors._

"What's it matter, anyway?" Sirius scoffs. "It's not like either of _us_ will end up in there; we're _Gryffindors_."

**Dishabille**

There's a tie slung carelessly over the back of the sofa. Halfway up the stairs is one discarded sock, followed two steps further up by another. The door to the dormitory is ajar, kept from closing by a tangled pair of trousers. Remus slips past it, kicking a wadded-up shirt out of the way as he enters, and crosses stealthily to the giggling heap of blankets on the farthest bed.

"Gotcha!" he whispers, and pounces.

Later, Sirius drowsily asks, "How'd you find me so quickly?"

"Followed your trail," Remus answers with a yawn, "like before."

Together, they burrow into sleep.

**Elusive**

In the gloaming they race: two boys, hand in hand, stumbling over each other in their hurry. Their laced fingers are a small protection against the deepening dusk. At last they stop in the lengthening shadows of the castle wall, sides heaving with laughter, leaning against the cool stones.

"Did we lose them?" Remus asks, breathless and giddy. "James and Peter – did we lose them?"

Sirius' eyes shine fever-bright as he presses himself against the other boy. They're almost of a height, though Sirius is a hairsbreadth taller. "Don't care," he says, and licks the corner of Remus' jaw. "D'you?"

**Flowerpot**

Remus can't take his eyes from the poor bedraggled thing. Its mottled leaves straggle limply along its stunted stem, while a crumpled white bloom nods shakily atop it all. It almost looks familiar, yet…

"It's a lily," James explains.

"Ah," Remus says. Sirius is simply speechless. "For… Lily?"

James simply beams and slips out of the dorm.

Moments later, a resounding crash fills the stairwell, soon outdone by James' and Lily's shouts.

"Not his best work, I'm afraid," Remus says, shaking his head.

Sirius nods. "Well," he confides, "James _is_ failing Herbology."

"Well," Remus adds sagely, "now we know why."

**Gesundheit**

Sirius hates being ill. He hates the sniffles and sneezes, the coughs and the wheezes equally. Mostly he hates to be forced indoors, chest heavy and sodden from being laid up. He spares a disdainful glance at the nightstand, cluttered crumpled tissues, half-drunk cups of tea and a nearly empty phial of Pepper-Up perching on one corner.

He falls back into the heaped-up pillows, toying idly with the bedcurtains. How unfair, to be stuck indoors, instead of out on the Quidditch pitch, or in Hogsmeade…

"I _hate_ this," he grumbles.

"Yes," says Remus dryly. "But _I'm_ the one who's sick."

**Haddock**

"I don't believe it," Remus says. He actually sounds astonished, and he is.

They're in London, which Sirius loves (and Remus less so) because it's noisy and busy and full of life. He's far less enthusiastic about the package Remus is holding out to him. It's not the grease-spotted newspaper, or the strange oily smell of the fish, but simply the _idea_ of it.

"People eat this?" Sirius asks. He pokes gingerly at it with one finger and tries not to recoil. "On purpose?"

Remus is incredulous. "How can you grow up in London and _not_ eat fish and chips?"

**Ice Lolly**

The flat is absolutely sweltering. Sirius lounges in a horribly tweedy armchair, legs dangling over the side, while his clothes lie tangled and forgotten on the floor. His entire body is lightly sheened with sweat.

"Any excuse to go starkers, yeah?" Remus says, eyes twinkling. He holds out something that, to Sirius, looks vaguely like a radioactive carrot. "Ice lolly?"

It's delicious, sweet and blessedly cold, dripping a sticky orange trail down Sirius' arm and across his bare chest. And provocative, he realises, just the shape of…

"Remus, c'mere," Sirius says, grinning. "Bend over."

Remus laughs. "It's not _that_ hot."

**Justify**

They circle each other warily in the tiny kitchen.

"Well, _someone's_ been leaking information," Remus repeats.

"It isn't me!" Sirius barks, eyes flashing. "What would you think," he spits, "if I told you I thought _you_ were the spy?"

"Me?" Remus sputters. "_Me?_"

Sirius whirls around, snatching a battered leather jacket from its hook. "So much for trust," he snarls. "You're being incredibly ridiculous. I'm going out."

"Are – are you going to come back?" Remus asks quietly. This conversation had _not_ gone the way he'd meant.

Sirius pauses at the door. "I don't know," he says softly. "I don't know."

**Kiosk**

The headlines are splashed across the front page of the Daily Prophet in enormous, glaring letters. Remus pauses, stunned, staring at the equally enormous photo of Sirius Black being held at wandpoint. _I was right_, he thinks, horrified. _I was right all along._

"I'n't that something?" the vendor says breezily, accepting the coins Remus dazedly hands over. "Tiny babe like that 'un, just up an' stops the darkest of dark wizards right in 'is tracks."

"Yes," Remus says. "It certainly is."

"Better that Black's locked up in Azkaban," the vendor adds. "Don't need _that_ kind out and about, do we?"

**Linger**

After a long while, the shock begins to wear off.

On a low table in another room, several letters remain unopened, gathering dust, each one bearing the Hogwarts seal.

Remus takes a sip of his firewhisky-laced tea and wonders why he, of all of them, is the one left alive. Of the four (_five_, he amends, _counting Lily_), why he must be the one left to remember all that they were, and what could have been.

_If Sirius were here, _he thinks bitterly_, he'd call me an old man, and laugh, and chuck something at me._

So pass the years.

**Mongrel**

The worst thing is the window. The rough, barred opening lets in both light (when the fog occasionally lifts) and a maddening scent of the open sea, promising him that outside his cell the world is continuing just fine without him.

The Animagus spell, once mastered, is not easily forgotten, and with ease Sirius changes into his dog form, the thick, shaggy fur blanketing him against the chill of the stone cell. He paces beneath the window, (_in the forest, the wolf and i, together we ran_), his heart yearning with the memory of warm hands tangled in his fur.

**Nougat**

The small square box sits smugly on the corner of his desk, its beribboned lid ever so slightly ajar. One of Honeydukes' best confections, of course – Remus knew it at first glance. He's sure McGonagall meant well by the gift, but…

"_Come on, Moony_," Sirius' voice drifts across his memory. "_It's got fruit, nuts – it's bound to be good for you. Try some."_ And it was delicious, every bite.

Perhaps he will have a piece after all.

_But it can't bring back what's past_, Remus thinks bitterly.

Before he can stop himself, he's thrown the little box into the fire.

**Ordinary**

So strange, to be here, in this cottage. So strange to be freshly bathed and shaven, to be dressed in warm dry robes. Stranger still, to sip firewhisky-laced tea from a clean mug. Strange, too, to be drowsing here by this crackling fire. _A very good dream_, he decides, though it seems unreal to dream so vividly in such a silence.

He starts as the blanket is draped across him, then relaxes again as familiar hands tuck it in.

"Go to sleep, Sirius," Remus murmurs, taking the tea a moment before it spills. "You're safe now. There're no Dementors here."

**Prison**

"You know it's the best place for the Order," Remus says. It's not the first time they've discussed it, nor will it be the last.

Sirius grimaces, shuddering at the thought of returning to those darkened halls, of sleeping again under that cold roof. _Almost better to still be locked in wizard gaol_.

"Azkaban revisited," he mutters, shaking his head. "No, Remus. I can't."

Remus clasps Sirius' hands within his own. "No, it won't be like that. I'll be there. And no Dementors."

_No_, Sirius thinks bleakly as the memories of his childhood home swarm around him. _Just the demented. _

**Quince**

There's not much for breakfast on the day they leave, save for tea and toast and a wee pot of jam that Remus has been saving.

"We'll go after we eat," Remus says, "and get it over with." Sirius agrees, though he'd much rather stay holed up in Remus' cottage rather than move back to Grimmauld Place.

Sirius sighs, reaching for the jam. He's not fond of it, but it's all there is for spread.

Remus frowns. "I thought you _liked_ quince jam," he says. "Isn't it your favourite?"

"That was _Prongs_," Sirius says, "though I'm convinced he was mad."

**Rival **

"I don't see why he has to be here!" Sirius shouts. He's been furiously pacing the length of the kitchen for the last half hour. "I don't care what Dumbledore says; I don't want him in this house!"

"He's a member of the Order," Remus explains again, though by now his patience is wearing thin. "Same as you."

"But," Sirius sputters, "you can't trust him!" And it's true, he thinks viciously, you _can't_ trust a snake – conniving, treasonous, slimy, greasy-haired…

Remus grabs Sirius by the wrist, forcing him to stop. "I _know_ you don't like Snape. But we need him."

**Scullery **

After Order meetings, Sirius likes to remain in the low-ceilinged kitchen, content to watch Remus rinse the crockery in his slow, methodical manner. It comforts him – a panacea of sorts, for the illness of being confined in this house.

"There's spells for that, you know," Sirius offers.

"I know," Remus replies, rinsing one last mug. "I like this way."

Remus likes to take his time with everything, Sirius notices, so that things are done right, done _properly_ – and Sirius knows that when the washing up is done, they'll go upstairs and disrobe, and Remus will take his time with Sirius.

**Tactile**

Remus' skin is like raw silk, exquisitely wrought in its fashion. Sirius' fingers glide across it of their own accord, tracing, circling. He has to remind himself not to be constantly touching Remus – no twining of fingers in the tawny (though graying) hair, no surreptitious stroking of Remus' arm. But in this house, brimming with the comings and goings of Order members, there is little occasion for privacy, precious few moments where Sirius can touch Remus all he wants.

Under the table Remus' hand will sometimes overlay his, and that slight touch serves to satiate them for a short time.

**Ungulate **

He finds the two-way mirrors, miraculously unbroken in the attic. The box label read _Sirius Black's Things: Do Not Touch!_ in a faded scrawl. And nobody _had_ touched them, for who would rummage through the belongings of such a pariah?

_All the trouble Prongs, Moony and I got into… and out of_, Sirius thinks, grinning. His vision suddenly doubles; rubbing at his eyes, he's shocked to find tears. _Ah, Prongs, you should be here, not me; I'm pants at this stuff._

Harry, he decides, shoving the mirrors deep into a pocket in his robes. He'll pass one along to Harry.

**Vow**

"Have you been into Severus' potions?" Remus asks, the corners of his mouth twitching with the supreme effort of not laughing.

"What, this?" Sirius gestures around the room at the flickering candlelight, the scattered rose petals, the book of Shakespearean sonnets he holds in one hand. "I'm trying to be romantic, you daft git!"

"Ah. Well. 'Git' is not terribly romantic, I'm afraid." And then Remus _does_ laugh. "Are you – Is that Kingsley's cologne?"

In disgust Sirius throws the sonnets to the floor. "I'm trying to tell you I love you, alright?"

"Ah. Well done, then," Remus grins. "It's mutual."

**Wait**

It's sheer torture, watching the minutes slide slowly into the past. _Order business_, Remus had said, apology lacing every word. _I'll hurry back if I can_.

An hour, then two.

The evening wears drearily on.

_I'll hurry._

The house is hollow, a shell, and Sirius merely a wraith wandering its halls. He moodily prowls the empty rooms in canine form, for in this way he can better recall Remus' scent.

_If I can._

It's morning, the dawn bleeding pale grey light in through the windows, before Remus returns, yawning and bleary-eyed, and mindful of the reproach in Padfoot's grim glare.

**Xenodochy **

Sirius often wonders how well any of the current Order know him. He's sure they've grudgingly accepted him by now – even Molly – for the well-warded house is perfect for their meetings, but by the same token he's equally sure most of the Order would much rather be elsewhere.

But, he reflects, how much does he know of them? What effort has he made to slough off the sheer misery of living in this house?

_Soon,_ Sirius promises himself. _When the war's over. I may have to live in this house, but I don't have to let it live in me._

**Yuletide **

Remus feels odd, almost wrong, being festive at Grimmauld Place, especially with Arthur still in St. Mungo's, and the constant threat of Voldemort hanging over all their heads. He steals a glance at Sirius, standing next to him, but Sirius' forced gaiety refuses to reach his eyes. Remus hurriedly looks away; Sirius' mood too closely mirrors his own.

Suddenly he realizes that Molly has just spoken to him. "Thanks," he finally says, and distractedly accepts her proffered glass of eggnog.

"What d'you think?" Sirius asks him abruptly.

Remus shrugs. "It's not that dismal."

"Yeah," Sirius agrees. "Next year'll be better."

**Zero Hour**

Despite all their long months of careful preparation, the battle still catches the Order off guard. In a flurry of wands and cloaks they charge through the Ministry, as though dragons were nipping at their heels.

Just steps from the Department of Mysteries, Sirius yanks Remus against a wall and kisses him fiercely.

"We'll win this one," he growls, his eyes shining as he kisses Remus again. His excitement at finally being allowed to help, to be _useful_, is nearly palpable. "You'll see. Be over soon."

Then he's off, Remus running right behind him, into the mindless fray that awaits.


End file.
